| United States Patent | 5,808,268 |
| Balz, et. al. | Sept. 15, 1998 |
Abstract
A method for marking a surface with high-density indicia comprising the steps of providing a marking device, providing input data defining indicia to be marked on the surface wherein the indicia comprises characters and the input data further defines a font for each character of the indicia, determining pixels for each character in accordance with the font, forming raster lines in accordance with the pixels, and traversing each raster line with the marking device to mark the surface according to the pixels of the raster line. If a laser is used as the marking device, the laser may need time to recharge in between marking closely spaced pixels. Thus, the laser may pass over certain pixels while the laser is recharging. Therefore, the laser may have to make an additional pass over the raster line to mark the pixels that were skipped over while the laser was recharging.
| Inventors: | Balz; James G. (Maybrook, NY); LaPlante; Mark J. (Walden, NY); Long; David C. (Wappingers Falls, NY); Peterson; Brenda L. (Wappingers Falls, NY). |
| Assignee: | International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, NY). |
| Appl. No.: | 686,239 |
| Filed: | Jul. 23, 1996 |
| Intl. Cl. : | B23K 26/00 |
| Current U.S. Cl.: | 219/121.8 |
| Field of Search: | 219/121.8, 121.76, 121.77, 121.81, 121.68, 121.69; 345/471 |
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